This tutorial will help you to connect, control, show and mirror your Android Phone on Ubuntu 24.04 computer using Screen Copy technology. With this, on Ubuntu you can control Android phone with mouse clicks, with computer keyboard, while the phone display fully shown on desktop. This article is a continuation to our tutorial two years ago Ubuntu Controls Android Screen. We hope this benefits you the best. Now let's start trying it out!

(Ubuntu 24.04 "Noble Numbat" showing controllable Android "Lollypop" screen)

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Requirements

Android Debugger (adb) available on Ubuntu repository.

Screen Copy (scrcpy) available on Ubuntu repository. 

Developer mode and USB debugging enabled on Android.

No root access required.

USB cable.

Compatibility

This tutorial is written for Ubuntu 24.04 "Noble Numbat" and is also applicable to Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Debian, Mint and other GNU/Linux operating systems with a little to no adaptation needed thanks to their familiarity. The Android system used in this tutorial is a Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 (released 2015) with Android 5 "Lollypop". The versions of programs used here are adb 1.0.41 (34.0.4-debian) and scrcpy 1.25.

How To Enable Developer Mode and USB Debugging on Android

1. Open Settings.

2. Go to About Phone. 

3. Tap 8 times "MIUI Version."*

4. Developer Mode enabled. 

5. Go to Additional Settings. 

6. Developer options. 

7. Tap USB Debugging option to enable it.**

8. Tap USB Debugging (security) option as well.

9. Now your Android phone is ready to work with adb and scrcpy.

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*) On other Android phones, this may be different but it should be near.

**) On Xiaomi Redmi, unfortunately this forces you to login with Xiaomi account and have a SIM card otherwise it would not work.

How To Connect Your Phone to Ubuntu Computer

1. Run Terminal.

2. Type command line below followed by Enter:

$ sudo apt-get install adb

3. Once adb installed, plug your cable from Android phone into Ubuntu computer. Then run this command line:

$ adb devices

4. Look at your phone screen, Android will ask for permisson to accept an "RSA key" sent from your Ubuntu computer. Accept it.

5. After accepting the RSA key, run the same command line once again:

$ adb devices

And the output should now show that your Android phone is now listed. It is ready for scrcpy this way.

How To Mirror Phone to Ubuntu Computer

1. Run Terminal.

2. Type command line below followed by Enter:

$ sudo apt-get install scrcpy

3. Once installed, run the next command line:

$ scrcpy 

4. A new window showing Android screen will show with the title "Redmi Note 2" (depends on your device name) like below:

5. Done. Happy hacking!

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How To Use Shortcut Keys

Click = tap.

Right-Click = Back button.

Alt+O = turn off phone screen, but continue mirroring.

Alt+R = rotate phone screen.

More shortcut keys can be read by running command line $ man scrcpy on Ubuntu Terminal.  

Free Software Info

scrcpy is a free software licensed under Apache License 2 developed by Genymotion. It is available for all major operating systems GNU/Linux, Windows and MacOS. It can be viewed as alternative to proprietary (nonfree) software AirDroid, AirMirror or Vysor. It is developed in open, public place by a community of developers from various countries and funded by donations. We would love to say thank you to Romain Vimont for creating and maintaining scrcpy together with the community -- you did great job! Lastly, if you want to join the development or support them by donation, visit their official website.

See Also

Scrcpy Control Your Phone from Ubuntu Desktop

References

https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy